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About Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current | View Entire Issue (March 17, 2021)
Appeal Tribune | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2021 | 1B OUTDOORS Hank Gulledge, right, manager of Santiam SnoLab, talks a student through the ski core routing process while building a new set of skis near Hoodoo Ski Area. PHOTOS BY KYLE MARTZ/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL Build custom snowboard or ski at Santiam SnoLab Kyle Martz Special to Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK A more hands-on way to ski and snowboard has opened at Hoodoo Ski Area. Santiam SnoLab, open since November, al- lows skiers and riders to design and build their own skis or snowboards from scratch. The business focuses on education, guiding everyone from children to adults through the finer points of ski design, said Hank Gulledge, general manager and instructor of the lab locat- ed at the side of Hoodoo’s ski patrol building. “This is a school that provides hands-on learning for all ages,” Gulledge said. “Our goal is to produce 1,000 pairs of skis and snowboards per year, and hopefully splitboards will be added to the mix soon.” Snolab is equipped with all the tools needed, including routers, table saws and ski molds, in a setting that resembles a high school shop class with a slope-side view. “The client is involved with every major as- pect of their build, from milling their wooden cores, to epoxy and pressing their skis or snow- board.” Gulledge said. “SnoLab employees take care of the mundane and technical details be- fore and after the client arrives. The client is per- sonally involved in at least 75% of the actual build.” See SNOLAB, Page 2B The finished product of new custom skis at Santiam SnoLab at Hoodoo Ski Area. How a pet store employee became a fighter against invasive species Fishing Henry Miller Guest columnist Talk about an unsung hero. An as-yet-undisclosed employee at a Seattle PetCo store is being credited with alerting officials about a potential ecological disaster. The employee discovered zebra mus- sels, an invasive scourge in multiple states and hundreds of water bodies in the U.S., in packages of “Betta Buddy Marimo Ball,” a decorative moss that is marketed for home aquariums. “I think every state in the union, the (Oregon) Invasive Species Council in- cluded, would give him the Eagle Eye Award; you couldn’t ask for a better thing,” said Rick Boatner, the Invasive Species Program supervisor for the Ore- gon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The Eagle Eye is one of six awards given out by the council for invasives prevention. “We believe that they originally came from the Ukraine area, and came into the (U.S.) through California, Florida and New York,” Boatner said about ship- ments of the Betta Buddy Marimo Ball. “As of Friday evening (March 5), we knew of 23 states, and we’re guessing that all 49 states received them in the United States.” The mussel-contaminated plants ap- parently slipped undetected past the federal monitoring agency, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, because they arrived in the packaging as veligers, a microscopic larval stage of the mussels. “That’s kind of the working theory,” Boatner said. “And then they developed into the settler stage in the packaging, because what we’re seeing is these are super small. “I mean ‘in God we trust’ on a penny, these things would fit between the s and the t.” It didn’t take long after the story broke for it to go viral online. “Through social media, this thing went nuts,” Boatner said. “I’ve gotten calls from as far away as New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Alaska in- forming me that they bought the prod- uct.” Oregon Fish and Wildlife immediate- ly mobilized, he added. “We did statewide with all of our agency people either contacting pet stores or visiting various pet stores around the state,” Boatner said. “And they’re all being very cooperative in pulling the product, so that’s very good.” Similarly, the federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is checking into the dis- tribution and supply chain, he added. It’s the internet sales that still what This invasive zebra mussel was found at a Salem-area pet store. COURTESY OF OREGON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE give him the heebie-jeebies, Boatner said. “We’re also seeing that it’s also being sold through Amazon and other things, so it’s huge,” he said. “That’s still my No. 1 headache on prohibited species in Ore- See MILLER, Page 2B
